Hours after he attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Revolutions entertainment complex in Lower Saucon Township, general manager James A. Fortunato was fired.

It was nothing Fortunato did at Revolutions that cost him his job, but what he did before he got there, the company said.

Fortunato, the former general manager of the Cosmopolitan Restaurant, was charged Friday with embezzling more than $163,000 since the upscale Allentown eatery opened in 2010, allegedly spending more than $6,000 at a strip club, authorities said.

Fortunato, 41, of Coplay admitted to a Lehigh County detective in July that he spent money out of the restaurant's accounts, including almost $6,200 on six visits to the Platinum Plus strip club in Allentown from October 2011 to February 2012, according to court records.

Fortunato told the detective he also used some of the money to pay bills, but was unsure how much he actually spent, according to court records. The restaurant hired an accountant to review its financial records and discovered Fortunato stole $163,601 since he was hired two years ago, according to court records.

Fortunato was most recently working as the general manager at Revolutions, the 40,000-square-foot entertainment complex that opened this week in Lower Saucon. He attended the venue's grand opening ceremony Thursday, but was fired the next day when company officials learned of his arrest, according to a company spokesperson.